Lapham’s Quarterly

I have loved war too well.

I detest war. It spoils armies.

Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer.

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

As peace is of all goodness, so war is an emblem, a hieroglyphic, of all misery.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.

The fear of war is worse than war itself.

War to the castles; peace to the cottages.

Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. War is hell.

War is the child of pride, and pride the daughter of riches.

I went [to war] because I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done.

You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war. 

War is sweet to those who don’t know it.

A dead enemy always smells good.